Stephen's Web

OLDaily

by Stephen Downes
June 3, 2009

Digital Identity and EIFEL's new direction
Good. If overdue. "EIFEL is moving from a focus on interoperability of ePortfolio data (document export/import, data structures) to a more flexible approach of an ePortfolio interoperability framework 'where individuals are free to choose the components of their own ePortfolio system while being capable of interacting with a number of different institutions across time (diachronic interoperability) and space (synchronic interoperability).'" Helen Barrett, E-Portfolios for Learning , June 3, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Interoperability, E-Portfolios] [Comment]

ONLINE FORUM: Lights, Camera, Action - Using Media to Engage the Learner
This looks like a good event to visit tomorrow (June 4) and Friday. But. I can't tell whether it is free to access - I assume it is, but the site doesn't say anywhere. And the links on this page are a disaster - the Javascript simply won't load the page; don't get cute with links, make them work, period. Maybe this page was just copied from some other site? But I can't tell, there's no link anywhere on the page that works. So if they fix this page by tomorrow you can attend this forum, which as I said, looks worthwhile. Brent Schlenker, Corporate eLearning Strategies and Development, June 3, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Ex-Conference Board Author Speaks Out; Confirms Push Back From Copyright Lobby Funders
Fallout from the Conference Board scandal continues. What I think is worth noting here is that several people may have toasted their careers over this - Curtis Cook, who is demanding that the Conference Board withdraw his name as an author of the report, and Jeremy deBeer, who posted the report the Conference Board subsequently ignored. Neither of these two will be hired by the Conference Board again, most likely, and one wonders whether they will ever be considered by other agencies who publish similar reports - everything from OECD to the Chamber of Commerce to the Government of Canada. These agencies hire people who play ball, and playing ball probably means not outing the big funders who skew the reports.More. Michael Geist, Weblog, June 3, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Books, Canada] [Comment]

Brace Yourself, Here Comes Another Unfair iPhone App Rejection
Not to keep harping on this, but this is the sort of thing that happens when you give the vendor control over the device you carry around in your pocket. "The last such case is the rejection of Electronic Frontier Foundation's iPhone application. What does the app do? It merely displays the contents of the EFF's blog RSS feed." Inside the feed is a link to a YouTube video Apple finds objectionable - and which is also available through its own iTunes service. Stan Schroeder, Mashable, June 3, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Apple Inc., Video, RSS, YouTube, Web Logs] [Comment]

Google Squared Live
I've watched the first third of the Google Wave video and am digesting that. Meanwhile, Google Squared, "the service that automatically generates lists of entities and associated attributes," is now live. You might think this is pretty boring. But if you spend any time messing around with databases you can see some tantalizing possibilities. Especially if (a) this can be populated with live data, and (b) you can create an API to map it into applications.More. Alex Chitu, Google Operating System, June 3, 2009 [Link] [Tags: Video, Google] [Comment]

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